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Richards v. Santini-Diaz8/3/2000
JUDGMENT AFFIRMED.
This is an appeal from an order of Visiting Judge James J. Sweeney following a jury trial. Defendant-appellant Yanira Santini-Diaz claims it was error to grant appellees, Gloria and Mark Richards, a new trial following a jury verdict in favor of Mrs. Richards only, on the Richardses' complaint for damages arising out of a car accident. She asserts there was sufficient evidence questioning Mrs. Richards' injuries and the necessity and costs of her medical treatment to support a jury award of one third of Mrs. Richards' purported medical expenses and lost wages and to award her husband nothing on his claim for loss of consortium. She further argues that by paying the jury award, which check was cashed by the Richardses' lawyer, the judge was divested of jurisdiction to rule on the motion for a new trial. We disagree and affirm.
On July 27, 1995, as Gloria Richards ( Richards ) was driving her car eastbound on Franklin Avenue toward its intersection with West 52nd Street in Cleveland, Yanira Santini-Diaz ( Santini ) was driving her car northbound on West 52nd and failed to stop at the stop sign at the Franklin Avenue intersection, causing a collision between the two cars. The record reflects that Richards claimed injuries to her neck, upper and lower back and related pain and suffering which required significant medical care and caused her to lose time from her employment as a nurse's aide.
Richards and her husband filed a complaint against Santini on July 22, 1997, praying for medical expenses, lost wages, and compensation for pain and suffering, hedonic damages, and Mr. Richards' loss of consortium. Santini answered with a general denial and sundry affirmative defenses including contributory negligence, assumption of the risk, statute of limitations and lack of proximate cause. Although originally assigned to the Docket of Judge William Aurelius, on October 29, 1998, it was assigned to Visiting Judge James J. Sweeney for trial. Santini had stipulated her negligence, so the issues for the jury were proximate cause and damages.
Richards testified about her injuries and medical care including an emergency room visit made the day of the accident, as well as subsequent treatment by multiple physicians at different facilities. She underwent physical therapy, a bone scan, nerve conduction studies, and three MRI scans. She told of ongoing, chronic pain after the accident that went unrelieved until she received a series of trigger point injections at Meridia Hillcrest Hospital in the Spring of 1996. Although the injections relieved most of the pain in her neck and shoulder area, she claimed the pain in her lower back had continued. The testimony of two physicians, Dr. Wilfredo Paras and Dr. Harold Mars, provided fact and opinion testimony relating her injuries and conditions to the 1995 auto accident.
Santini's defense was directed at minimizing Richards' injuries, he argued that: (1) the impact was minor and any possible injury could not be as serious as claimed; (2) her treating physicians employed unnecessary diagnostic and treatment methods; and (3) her claims of pain were caused by pre-existing or subsequent back injuries unrelated to the car accident. In support of these arguments Santini's lawyer elicited testimony that Richards' husband had called Alan Nussbaum, his workers' compensation lawyer, for the name of a physician to treat his wife; that Nussbaum referred Richards to the Rockside Medical Center where she was treated by Drs. Charms and Paras; that the patients of the Rockside Medical Center and its affiliate, the Parma Therapy Center, are almost exclusively composed of workers' compensation claimants and persons with acc
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